Saturday, January 27, 2007

If You Had Any Doubts?

As Johnny Sutton, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, put it: “The simple truth of this case is that former Agents Compean and Ramos shot 15 times at an unarmed man who was running away from them and posed no threat. They lied about what happened, covered up the shooting, conspired to destroy the evidence and then proceeded to write up and file a false report.”

The Congressmen who are exploiting the episode haven’t made an issue of the agents’ guilt, which is by and large conceded. Rather, the restrictionists argue that Compean and Ramos should be given a pass because the victim of their crime was a drug-smuggling illegal alien.

This is an odd argument coming from immigration hard-liners, who typically say that while they love legal immigrants the U.S. must “enforce the law” on the border. That the agents have been held accountable for misconduct shows that no one is above the law. Letting the agents off the hook would also send a terrible message to honest border agents who perform a difficult and dangerous job.

Turning felons into political causes is the kind of stunt usually pulled by the likes of Al Sharpton. That Republicans would now stoop to it shows how immigration has caused some on the right to lose their political bearings. First they gave up their belief in free labor markets, and now they’re discarding their law enforcement credentials.

And these are the same folks who assail Mr. Bush’s guest-worker proposal as “amnesty.” The irony is that if Mr. Bush’s plan were in place and there were more legal ways to enter the U.S., border agents would have more time and resources to chase down people like Aldrete-Davila and apprehend them properly.